I See Cunning in Kalmadi’s Commonwealth Games

India Races to Save Crisis-Hit Games

So the supremo’s master plan has worked. The man who helped India bag the Commonwealth Games in 2003 by promising to pay for athletes’ training in member countries—a move that was slammed by the other finalist, Hamilton, Ontario, as just not cricket—really has outdone himself this time.

AP

Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee in New Delhi has assumed the posture of a man who genuinely doesn’t see what the problem is.

With most Indian sports underfunded, politically-influenced and dominated by administrators who have held their positions since the sports were founded, India was set to face an embarrassment at its home games.

Not in the infrastructure, but in the competition. Few of its athletes had a shot at seriously competing against the sporting powers—at least in Commonwealth terms—of England, Australia, South Africa, Scotland and Canada, even if the Indian population is several times larger than all of those combined.

But Suresh Kalmadi, chairman of the Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee in India, has managed to concoct such a gigantic fiasco on almost all fronts that the decks are now being cleared for Indian athletes to excel across the board and win a fistful of medals that they otherwise would not.

So far, Mr. Kalmadi’s plan is unfolding perfectly.

World-class athletes are bailing on the Games right and left. The New Zealand swimming team has high-tailed it to Dubai. India is being compared (unfavorably) to a godforsaken swamp by everyone from the English world champion triple jumper to an Australian discus thrower to two Canadian archers, Kevin Tataryn and Dietmar Trillus, all of whom have decided to stay home.

“What really concerns me the absolute most is the diseases that are running very rampant right now due to the monsoons, as well as the terrorism threats, which are apparently very, very real things,” Mr. Trillus told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Whoa! Let’s move the Games to Kabul.

Scotland and Canada took Mr. Kalmadi’s bait and delayed their arrival, ensuring that they will be thoroughly jetlagged during the opening heats. And any athlete who now stays in the Games Village will be constantly watching where they step, let alone where they run. The next phase of this cunning conspiracy, presumably, is to let a few thousand laborers loose on the track at Jawaharlal Nehru stadium to add a few “finishing touches” the night before the 1500-meter final.

Mr. Kalmadi has even roped in Lalit Bhanot, secretary-general of the Organizing Committee, and Sheila Dikshit, Delhi’s chief minister, to the conspiracy. Mr. Bhanot suggested at a press conference that there was no real problem at the “filthy” Games Village, it’s just that foreign athletes have different standards of hygiene than the rest of us.

Given the reports of stray dogs in apartments and feces on the floor, this was probably rather alarming for athletes coming to India for the first time, who might reasonably be asking: He considers that normal? It probably also had the unintended affect of ensuring that Mr. Bhanot won’t have to do any entertaining at home during the Games.

Mrs. Dikshit played her part with great aplomb by suggesting that the collapse of a 100-meter bridge, injuring 25, was “minor.”

If I were a 100-meter sprinter, I’d have a good sense of how long that is — and would credit myself with having very good sense for bailing on the Games now. If I were another kind of athlete, I’d wonder what it would take for an incident to be sufficiently serious to justify Mrs. Dikshit’s describing it as major. I might wonder — but I probably wouldn’t travel to Delhi to find out.

Through it all, Mr. Kalmadi has selflessly taken the heat from the world’s media and assorted country representatives and politicians. Yet he has assumed the posture of a man who genuinely doesn’t see what the problem is. Of course he has, because to him there isn’t a problem. His plan is working with clinical efficiency, ensuring that come Oct. 14, India’s medal count will be high enough to make the country proud. The only thing that can go wrong now is if the Indian team decides that it is too unsafe to participate.

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